the Arabian Peninsula and Socotra including new species, biological notes, and a new infrageneric classification Author Manning, John C. Author Goldblatt, Peter text Adansonia 2001 3 23 1 59 108 journal article http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5180119 1639-4798 5180119 33. Romulea stellata M.P. de Vos J. S. African Bot., Suppl. 9: 291 (1972) ; Fl. S. Africa 7(2), fasc. 2: 71 (1983). — Type : de Vos 2171 , South Africa , Western Cape , Pakhuis Pass (holo-, NBG !) . Plants 3-5 cm high, stem subterranean; corm with a crescent-shaped basal ridge. Leaves 1 or 2, basal, narrowly 4-grooved, 0.5 mm diam.; outer bracts submembranous, inner bracts with narrow colorless membranous margins. Flowers hypocrateriform, violet or white with yellow throat, unscented, perianth tube cylindrical, 11-17 mm long, tepals elliptic, 7-11 mm long; filaments glabrous, 2-3.5 mm long, anthers 2-3 mm long. Fruiting peduncle short, suberect. Flowering: May-July. The montane Romulea stellata grows in shallow, seasonally waterlogged sand on rocky, sandstone pavement in Western Cape Province from the Gifberg to the northern Cedarberg. It is a curious plant, taxonomically isolated in the genus and superficially resembling a species of the related genus Syringodea . It is distinctive in its tiny flower, cylindrical perianth tube and one, or at most two, filiform leaves. Although allied by DE VOS with R . syringodeoflora in subgenus Lomurea on the basis of the similar perianth tube the two species differ markedly in their corms and their floral similarities must be convergent. — Ser. TORTUOSAE